


When The Day Is Over

by Messed_Up_Mind



Category: Escape the Night (Web Series)
Genre: < I’m sorry, Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bad Spelling & Grammar, Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Comfort, Dissociation, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Panic Attacks, Psychological Torture, Slow Updates, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-01-24 11:43:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21337684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Messed_Up_Mind/pseuds/Messed_Up_Mind
Summary: This will be a series of stories set in the universe of ‘When the museum is silent’ by MP198651 and Chalalalalala.If you haven’t read their story, please go and do so. It’s brilliant and very unique.
Relationships: Gabbie Hanna/DeStorm Power, Rosanna Pansino/Timothy DeLaGhetto
Comments: 67
Kudos: 19





	1. When we all fall asleep, where do we go?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chalalalalala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chalalalalala/gifts).
  * Inspired by [when the museum is silent](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19950697) by [Chalalalalala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chalalalalala/pseuds/Chalalalalala). 

> As this story is inspired by ‘When the museum is silent’ it may make sense to go and read that story first, otherwise you may be slightly confused.  
These stories will include the S4 cast, along with Lele Pons, Liza Koshy, and Lauren Riihimaki. 
> 
> This is also my first time writing a proper story so I hope you like it. I apologise for any grammar or spelling mistakes.  
Warning: these stories will deal with very dark concepts, such as torture, death, etc. There is a reason that my username is Messed_Up_Mind.
> 
> The book title was inspired by the title of ‘When the museum is silent’ and ‘when the party’s over’ by Billie Eilish.   
This chapter title is from ‘Bury A Friend’ again, by Billie Eilish.

After watching The Collector leave the Museum through the portal outside, Joey cautiously crept through the hallways of the Museum and thought of the people he had failed, who had been murdered in such gruesome ways that it made him feel sick, so that others could escape the same ghastly fate. The people who he now had a chance to save.

He thought of fierce Colleen, who had been brutally killed in an iron maiden after she had declared her disbelief of him and his story.  
Of sweet Rosanna, whose last words had been telling her soul-brother that “I love you”, who had tried her best to be brave in the face of her death and didn’t deserve to be stabbed to death by The Witches.  
Of poor Justine, who had screamed and cried for his help as she was buried alive, until she suffocated in her coffin, scared, alone and betrayed by all those around her.  
Of hilarious Liza, who had trusted him, saved his life even and in return for her help and friendship, he had voted for her to die and her throat was slit as a result.  
He was snapped out of his brooding by Bretman, who had just waved his hand in front of his face.  
“Earth to Joey? This door says ‘Main Exhibition Room’ we need to go in there.” Bretman said as he opened the door. Taking a very deep breath Joey stepped through the now open door and was immediately greeted by the ‘Main Exhibition Room’ where his friends (and some frenemies) were frozen in large glass cases in a circle formation around the middle of the room.

He immediately walked to the middle of the room and looked around to see their faces. Most of them were here... Justine, Timothy, Lele, Lauren, Destorm, Liza, Tana, Gabbie, Alex, Colleen and Ro. They were here... they were actually really physically here. Joey felt like he could cry.

He heard Bretman mumble “oh my highlight” behind him but payed no attention to it, he practically ran to Colleen’s case to see how he could open it.  
“I’m so sorry Colleen” he said as he ran his fingers over the joints of the glass, before he noticed another case by the front of Colleen’s case. Curious, he walked towards it and looked at what it contained.  
“What? No! It can’t be!?” He exclaimed.  
“Joey, what is it?” Bretman asked as he cane running over to Joey’s side but Joey took no notice of him, as he was to busy staring in horror at the item in the case. 

The Night Killer’s doll... the artefact that was cleansed by Colleen’s death was sitting in the case right in front of Colleen’s.

Quickly, he began to run around the room to the other exhibition cases that contained his friends with Bretman following him and asking what was wrong. When Bretman realised that Joey wasn’t going to reply to him, he began to look at some of the other cases in the room on his own.

As Joey saw the items in the cases, he began to feel physically sick.  
Running to Justine’s case, he sees that Justine’s item was one of the shovels that was used to bury her alive, still covered in soil, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach, he moved to the next case.  
It was Timothy and inside the case was a antique revolver that Tim had shot himself with during the game of ‘Russian Battleships’ that Eva had described to them, after she returned in tears.  
The next case was Rosanna, inside the case next to her’s were three daggers with runes carved into the handles... the Witches daggers that they used to stab her to death. 

Joey felt like he couldn’t breathe.

The next case. Lele and the metal rings he had used to try and save her from the electric chair.  
Next. Liza and some of the blue Harpies feathers that still had some of her blood coating the edges.  
Next. Lauren and the golden goblet had that cost her her life.  
Next. Alex and the Guardian of The Dark Dimension’s blade that he was stabbed with.  
Next. Destorm and the glowing arrow that he was executed with, complete with blood still on it’s tip.  
Next. Tana and the Ice Guardian’s sword that had sliced her stomach open, again covered in the blood of its victim.  
“Oh my god! Joey, get over here!” Bretman practically yelled.  
“Shhh! What is it?” Joey said as he walked over to join Bretman at the final case, which belonged to Gabbie Hanna. Bretman didn’t answer and just kept staring in horror at whatever was the case in front of him.  
This case was no different to the others, you couldn’t look through the surrounding glass walls of the case until you were standing in front and looking down through the top panel. There was only one difference, from the small part of the interior walls that Joey could see, it looked like this case was lined with silk? As Joey approached he noticed that Bretman had gone green, like he was about to be sick.  
“Are you okay B-“ Joey cut himself off as he began to gag violently, he raised a hand to his mouth and turned away from the case before he could vomit and now understood why Bretman looked so green.

Seeing the item inside reminded Joey of what Alex had told them about how Gabbie had died when she lost the challenge. How a Promethian Man had pinned her to the floor and shoved it’s hand into her chest before it had ripped her heart out as she had kicked, screamed, and begged for it to leave her alone.

Because sitting in the silk lined case in front of them was Gabbie’s own blood covered heart.

“Oh my god Joey! What the hell happened to everyone?!” Bretman yelled.  
“Shhh! You’ll attract the guards or something!” Joey whisper yelled back in response. “I don’t kno- well, I do know but it’s a very very long story that we don’t have time for. We need to get them out of here now!”  
“Fine!” Bretman snapped, “what’s that over there” he said, pointing to a strange object in the middle of the room. “It looks weird as hell.”  
“I don’t know. Let’s go look.” Joey answered. 

Upon closer inspection the object looked to be a very strange tree stump with a glowing light in the middle of it. There were no visible buttons or switches that could turn it off, so Joey did the next best thing. He walked over to a random, pickaxe looking item and used it to bludgeon the top of the stump until it stopped glowing.  
As soon as the glowing stopped, the exhibition cases containing his friends and frenemies began to break themselves open one by one. Starting with Justine and ending with Rosanna.  
Only... none of them moved? They were still standing as perfectly still as they were when Joey and Bretman had entered the room, until a sudden piercing scream came out of nowhere causing Joey and Bretman to jump and turn around to see who had begun to scream...

It was Tana... she soon stopped screaming and just looked at them both in shock. Then one by one, the other guests started to move.  
Gabbie let out another loud but shorter scream and Destorm immediately went to wrap an arm around her shoulders.  
Colleen had almost fallen over backwards but quickly managed to regain her balance.  
However, Timothy had fallen to the ground and now refused to move off the floor, dramatically exclaiming “Just leave me here, the floor is my home now!” while Rosanna giggled at his behaviour and tried to pull him up.  
Lele was alternating between looking around in amazement and staring at her hands, feet, hair, etc.  
Lauren and Alex immediately ran to embrace each other in a tight hug, whispering things to each other that no one else could hear.  
Liza was jumping up and down on the spot, yelling “You got my message! Yes! You came to get us!”  
Justine was... Justine had sunken to her knees on the floor and was sobbing so hard that she made no sound, before looking up at Joey through the tears in her eyes. 

“Okay, can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?!” Bretman yelled, which brought everyone’s eyes back towards him and Joey. 

And oh boy... some of them looked angry.


	2. Learn to lose you, can’t afford to (part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joey and Bretman begin to suspect that the others aren’t okay.

Ro was incredibly anxious and that’s putting it lightly.  
Joey and Bretman had broken into the museum, freed them from their cases in the Main Exhibition room and everyone was now on their way to ‘The Sands Of Egypt’ to complete yet another riddle. Ro was walking with her arm entwined with Tim’s near the back of the group with Gabbie and Destorm. Colleen, Tana, and Liza were walking in the middle of the group and finally Bretman, Lele, Lauren, Alex, and Justine were walking by Joey, trying to listen to him talk while they were on their journey as several guests had started to question Joey to inquire about who had escaped from their respective hell holes, but Ro couldn’t focus on that for one reason...

Mat was still alive.  
Her brother from another mother was still alive and he was a father to a beautiful baby boy. Ro couldn’t believe it. She had spent so long wondering if Mat had died again or if he had escaped... and he had, he’d escaped that dreadful night and lived to tell the horrifying tale. Ro felt like she could cry from happiness, until she heard what Joey had said ahead of her.

“Mat was shaken up, had a few scrapes and was a bit bruised when we got him back but other than that he was relatively okay.” He spoke to the people around him. Ro’s mind was instantly snapped back to one of The Collector’s taunts ‘Poor Mat. We had such great fun in our short time together. I even gave him some lasting memories, too bad you never noticed that he was in pain.’ Hundreds of thousand thoughts began to rush through her head.  
Had she missed some bruises when he came back to them? Had she been so wrapped up in solving the next clues that she didn’t notice that he was hurt? How could she have been so oblivious? How could she have been such a bad friend? How could sh-

“Ro? Ro, are you okay?” She heard Tim’s voice speaking to her but she couldn’t reply. She couldn’t do anything. She, oh god, she felt like she couldn’t breathe. Every breath she took was fast, uneven and seemed to drain the energy from her body. She could feel her legs turn to jelly and she began to drop to the floor before she felt a pair of hands gently wrap themselves around her biceps, while another held onto her waist as they carefully lowered her to the ground to prevent any injuries. 

As soon as she was sitting on the floor, she felt someone take a seat beside her before they cautiously took her hand in their own. She heard someone talking next to her but whatever they were saying sound muffled, like they were talking to her underwater. She tried to focus on something but the only thing that she could think of was Mat. How did she not notice? What did The Collector do to him? Did she torture him, like she had done to all the guests in her exhibit? She was an awful friend! How could she not notice him in pain! Did anyone else get injured and she didn’t notice? 

(Third person but focused on Bretman) 

“Ro? Ro, are you okay?” Bretman turned around to look at the others when he had heard the distress in Tim’s voice as he asked the small woman if she was alright but Rosanna didn’t answer him, she was hyperventilating. Suddenly her legs gave out from under her, prompting a few guests to let out small cries of shock, and she almost dropped to her knees on the floor, before Tim and Destorm managed to grab hold of her and gently lowered her to sit on the floor instead. Tim immediately sat down next to her and began to talk to her in a gentle voice while he held onto her hand.

After a moment, it clicked. Rosanna was having a panic attack, he could recognise some of the signs as he always tried to help Nikita when she has one.  
Surprisingly, right as Bretman went to offer some help, all the other guests joined Rosanna and Tim on the floor. Not close enough that they were crowded around her but just close enough to form a sort of ‘protective wall’. They all did this so quickly Bretman thought that there was no way that they could have gotten used to this level of coordination in seconds without practice, which meant they had to do this... a lot.  
Just about half of them had theirs backs facing outwards, towards the rest of the room. While the rest of the guests like Destorm, Lele, Liza, Lauren, and Alex sat almost sideways in the circle of people on the floor while they looked around the room.  
It took him a minute but Bretman realised that they were keeping watch. They were trying to protect the others, who had their backs to the room and that left them vulnerable to someone sneaking up on them or an attack. 

“Okay, what the hell is happening?” Bretman had been so lost in his thoughts that the sudden noise of Joey’s voice made him flinch.  
“I think Rosanna was having a panic attack.” Bretman answered, looking at the small woman, who was breathing easier now but she had curled her legs up to her chest which made her look even smaller than she already was. She also had tears running down her cheeks which Tim carefully reached up to wipe away. 

Bretman and Joey were still standing at the edge of the group and both felt awkward watching the others, who were mostly silent apart from Tim’s quiet voice and Rosanna’s muffled hiccuping sobs. It was another minute of silence before Rosanna finally spoke.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to h-“ her apologies were immediately cut off by Tana.  
“You don’t have to apologise for having a panic attack Ro. We all have them...” realising what she had said, Tana spun around to look at Joey and Bretman with a bit of panic in her eyes.  
“Shit! Sorry. I mean only a few of us have had them and not very often.” It was clear that she was trying to backtrack now and was too panicked to actually succeed at it. 

“Wait, what do you mean you all have them?” Joey questioned. Tana looked like she wanted the ground to swallow her, before she sheepishly turned to look back at the others, who were just beginning to get up from the floor. None of them looked upset at her though they just looked like they expected this to happen.

“Well, we all died in some pretty horrific ways, Joey!” Colleen yelled at him and Joey flinched at the sudden outburst. “I mean you shoved me into an iron maiden and I was impaled by like, a hundred spikes! You don’t forget that, it doesn’t go away! It sticks with you and no matter how hard you try to forget it. It never ever goes away!” 

Bretman didn’t realise that he was holding his breath until he began to feel lightheaded. “Wait, Joey. You murdered Colleen? What the hell!” Joey had killed Colleen, he shoved her into an iron maiden. “Who else did you kill?” He asked.

“Look, why don’t we all finish this stupid riddle and talk about this once we get back to the lounge/safe room/whatever the hell you want to call it?” Shouted Liza. Bretman reluctantly agreed and off they went, back on their stupid quest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my first time writing anything about a panic attack so I hope I don’t get it too wrong. If I have, please let me know and I’ll try my best to fix it. Thank you :)
> 
> This chapter will have a part 2, where the guests explain how they died to Bretman and call Joey out on some of his behaviour. I’ll try to have it out soon.


	3. Tore my shirt to stop you bleedin' (part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bretman learns some of the guests stories.
> 
> There will be a part 3 of this chapter but I wanted to get this part up because the writing is taking me slightly longer than I expected.
> 
> Warnings: there are brief discussions of decapitation and a mention of vomiting but those are near the end of the chapter.
> 
> I’m sorry if any information was incorrect, I haven’t watched the series in ages so I’m writing the guests recounts by memory of what happened in their death episodes.
> 
> I hope you enjoy :)

The guests had finally managed to escape the mummified remains of the Pharaoh and returned to the lounge. Everyone sat down in the various sofas and chairs around the room, although Tim chose to sit on the floor. Tana sat on one part of the sofa with Gabbie in the middle and Destorm on the end. Justine was sitting on another sofa with Rosanna next to her and Liza was perched on the end, while Tim was sitting on the floor by Rosanna’s feet. Lele was sitting in an armchair with her legs hooked over one side while Joey sat on the empty arm of the same chair with Lele’s head leaning against him, and Colleen sat on a different armchair as far away from Joey as she could get. Bretman had a seat to himself and finally Alex was sitting in another chair with Lauren on his lap, her legs dangling over one arm of the chair.

As soon as everyone was settled, Bretman spoke.  
“Okay spill. I don’t care who but I want to know what the hell is going on.” He declared. This caused the rest of the guests to look around at each other, silently communicating.

“I got a letter saying that I inherited this house from a distant relative and I was told that in only appears in the 1920s and that anything from the modern age would’ve kept the house hidden.“ Joey began.

“Wait, distant relative? That just sounds like one of those “we’re a modelling agency and we want you to model for us” scams.” Bretman said, which caused a few scattered laughs to be heard around the room.

“As I was saying. Once I started staying in the house, I kept having nightmares about it an-“  
“And you left immediately and sold it?” Bretman said.  
“No, I decided to invite some people over for a party because I thought that I was just being silly and needed to get used to the house. Everything was fine, until we had dinner. Shane, Shane Dawson, he... um... he got a note and he told us that it wasn’t important. I didn’t really believe him but I let it go and we continued with dinner... but um... all of a sudden Shane started coughing up blood so we read the note and it said he’d been poisoned. We had 15 minutes to find 3 antidotes to cure him but we failed and Shane died.” 

“Crap. I take it that you tried to leave?” Destorm asked. “We tried but the car blew up.” Joey said in reply. Everyone was shocked at that, well apart from Justine, Tim and Lele. They saw it happen.

“Okay, Shane left us a note saying that he worked for the society against evil.” Joey pointed at the symbol on his leather jacket. “He said that the house was possessed by an evil and he had come to try and get rid of it... since that didn’t work. It meant that we had to do it.”

“Can I take over?” Justine asked and got a nod from Joey in reply.  
“We had to find 4 artefacts to complete a ritual and then we could banish the evil, but there was a catch that I know you are all familiar with.” She spoke directing her last sentence to the guests in the room. Joey looked like he wanted to interrupt but held himself back.

“Oh, basically Bretman we had to vote for 2 people to do a challenge, the loser of which would die.” She explained quickly.  
“So our first vote comes up with Lele and Andrea being sent in, while Lele picked Eva as her helper and for some reason Andrea chose me. I told her not to and that I was stupid but she picked me anyway. I tried my best but Andrea died. When we came back, there was an argument and I said some things that I really really shouldn’t have. Then Oli found a note saying that “One amongst you is in league with the evil.” Because I couldn’t save Andrea everyone thought it was me.” She broke off here and took a few deep breaths, Rosanna was sitting next to her and held her hand to try and comfort her.

“The next challenge was basically we had to find some things that belonged to a dead woman and find her coffin out in the grounds of the house. When we got out there Arthur, the butler, told us there would only need to be a vote of one person to go in the coffin and be buried alive.” Tears where running down Justine’s cheeks now and Bretman felt like a pit had opened in his stomach. “Because I wasn’t very popular among the group and despite my begging, my name was drawn. I tried to run away but Marvin, the groundskeeper, caught me. Lele and Tim grabbed me while Glozell held Joey back from helping me and I was screaming and crying and pleading... but they forced me into the coffin and I could hear Oli apologising multiple times and the sound of the dirt hitting the top of the coffin. I don’t know how long it was but I think I suffocated.” Justine tried to force a smile and said “and that’s the story of how I died!”

After hearing the story, there were several glares shot out at Tim and Lele. Rosanna was looking conflicted for a good reason. Joey might not have noticed it but Bretman did. Earlier, during Rosanna’s panic attack, he noticed how close she and Tim were. They were dating... or at least the closest you could get to that in this museum. Dating the guy who helped to murder your best friend... wow... that’s hard.

It was Tim who spoke up next and began to explain what lead to his death. “After Justine, Glozell died, then Sierra, then Matt, and then me. But there is one thing after we got the 4th artefact and tried to perform the ritual, it didn’t work because the past owners were still trapped in the house and we had to help them crossover to properly complete the ritual. We helped a priest, a real life mermaid, and as I like to call him ‘that douche canoe, Colin.’ He was a soldier who stole some gold and he refused to leave the house without it so we had to get it for him. Yay!  
After trying to get into a briefcase and Eva blowing up some guy with a grenade, it was badass, we had to vote again. Eva and I got drawn and off we went to get Colin’s gold.  
We arrived at this little shed thing and once we were inside, we had to play ‘Russian Battleships’.”

“What the hell is ‘Russian Battleships’? Bretman interrupted. Tim just gave him a blank stare.  
“I was just about to explain it. So we had a board each and a bunch of soldiers to put on our grids, after doing that, we then had to play the game as normal. Until someone got a hit. If they scored a hit the person who got hit had to then take the revolver from the middle of the table.” There were several sharp intakes of breath at this revelation. Rosanna reached down to place her hand on Tim’s shoulder in an attempt to comfort him.  
“And put it up to their head and pull the trigger, hence the ‘Russian’ part, Russian roulette. It was awful, we didn’t know whether we would get shot or it wouldn’t go off. I think the worst thing was looking at Eva’s face as she pulled the trigger. She was absolutely terrified, she was sobbing and I couldn’t do that to her, so the next time she said a place, I told her it was a hit even though she was way off. I took the revolver while she hid her face in her hands and I pulled the trigger. The next thing that I know, I’m waking up here.” Everyone looked shocked, Bretman can’t believe that he did that for Eva. While Tim had done an awful thing to bury Justine, but he gave his life for Eva because he couldn’t stand to see her cry. It was a hard judgement to make.

Lele’s turn now.  
“So the last person we had to help was a guy called Vincent, who was in a straitjacket and suffering from hallucinations. There were 3 padlocks on the jacket and we had to enter 3 of his hallucinations to find them. There was one that basically turned into WWE, one to do with masks, and the final one was the death challenge.  
We all decided to vote for ourselves and see what happened. Of course, my fucking name got picked and so did Oli’s. We had to pick a partner of the opposite gender so I got Joey and then we went down to the basement of death!” Lele said as she clapped her hands in fake excitement.

“So we got down there, Oli and I were going to be strapped into “learning chairs”. Lele made air quotes around ‘learning chairs’. “Which were actually electric chairs while Eva and Joey had to throw with metal rings onto these poles at our feet. Everytime they missed we got electrocuted and the shocks got worse as time went on. After a few minutes, some arguments, and lots of screaming, Eva managed to save Oli and my chair began amping up the voltage and I was electrocuted.” Lele had gotten quieter towards the end of her story. She quickly and discreetly tried to wipe a tear that had begun to run down her cheek. 

“That’s sick. That is genuine torture.” Bretman yelled.  
Neither Joey or Bretman heard Lele’s whisper of “If only you knew.”

“After Lele died, we went to free Vincent and he told us that the house staff were the ones in league with the evil.” Joey revealed. 

“Wait! What?” Justine, Tim, and Lele yelled in sync.  
“Yeah we weren’t really expecting it either. Anyway Arthur had been keeping his brother locked in this tiny cupboard and we let him out. He went outside and killed Marvin, Sarah, and Arthur before dying of his wounds.  
We rushed to complete the ritual and I took the deed from the house so it couldn’t be sold or anything. We finished the ritual and then we walked away but that’s the last thing I can remember. The next thing I know I was in that mansion.” 

“Ok boomer, who’s up next?” Bretman asked. (I’m sorry, I’m Gen Z, I couldn’t resist)

“That would be me. I died first.” Lauren answered. “We all got a invitation to a ball at the mansion, a while later we arrived and were greeted by this guy called Dorian who said that Joey would be there soon. In the mean time he encouraged us to mingle, so Tana, Andrea, and I went to the top of the staircase and found this huge book which was open to a page about Dorian. We noticed that it had a bookmark that had ‘live’ on one side and ‘evil’ in the other so we brought it down and the others had found this puzzle thing so we put ‘evil’ into it and got a key.  
Then Alison told us it was time to go to the ballroom and we heard muffled screaming behind us as someone kidnapped Liza.”

“Yeah, we were really bad friends.” Gabbie spoke in an almost monotone voice, it was clear that she was trying to make a joke but she sounded like she wasn’t even interested in what she had just said. It was sad and almost scary how empty she sounded.

“So we were all herded off to the ballroom and Alison, Dorian’s daughter, told us to be stay close to her which a bit unsettling but we went in and there were quite a few people already there. As soon as we were altogether in the room, Dorian said that “dinner has arrived.” The lights flickered and it turned out that the other people, including Dorian and Alison, were vampires.” Lauren explained.  
“Wait! Like actual real life vampire? Like Twilight and shit?” Bretman asked.

“Yep. So we were all freaking the hell out and then Dorian showed us where Joey had been this whole time. They pulled back this curtain and there was Joey, chained up with a tube coming out of him harvesting his blood, then they brought out Liza and chained her up too. Alison defended us from the vampires and we had to run. We got into this... billiard room... thing? Alison told us that to escape we’d have to kill her father with purified salt and a sunstone.  
So we searched the room and every few minutes, Alison would ring a bell to warn us to hide as a vampire was coming. The first time this happened I was immediately caught because the back of my dress was too big. Then I was taken and tied up outside and Andrea soon joined me.  
After a little while, Joey and Liza found us and let us out as they had managed to escape where they were being kept. We went to this lounge room and Alison told us that once a year Dorian would ask a riddle to the vampires and whoever got it right would win some time with time, while anyone who answered incorrectly would have all the blood drained from their body. Alison had the answer and asked if anyone wanted to volunteer and someone asked me but I said no because I didn’t want to mess it up and get us all killed so Andrea stepped up and lured Dorian outside, where Alex burned him with the sunstone and Joey ran him through with a huge stake.”

“That sounds like a great time.” Lele sarcastically announced.  
“Yeah, I’d give it five stars on yelp.” Added Tana. 

“Then Dorian’s wife showed up and wanted to kill us all but Alison argued that he was killed in the proper way and settle it ‘life for a life’. As I’m sure you can guess that meant 2 of us had to go into an challenge.” Lauren paused and shifted slightly on Alex’s lap so she could rest her head on his shoulder.

“A few people thought that I should go in because I didn’t volunteer earlier so my name was pulled with Destorm’s because he had a key on his watch earlier that opened Dorian’s diary or something.” 

“We’re still sorry about that.” Liza apologised.

“It’s okay, you know I’ve forgiven you all.” Lauren said. “So Destorm and I had to compete to get this golden goblet from the Queen. There were a few stages, like we had to find 3 stars around the room and stuff like that. The final stage was that we found these wooden coffins and had to complete the maths questions on top to open it, but I just couldn’t think and then Destorm managed to get the final note and the goblet from the queen. She told him that he’d won and “could we please eat the other one”. All the vampires just swarmed me and I don’t remember what happened after that, just that I felt really woozy and then nothing.” 

“Wow. That must of sucked.” Liza said trying to lighten the mood, earning a funny look from Joey and Bretman, until they heard Lauren and everyone else giggle. 

“Who went next then?” Bretman asked.  
“Well technically Jesse, but out of the people in this room. I was.” Destorm answered. “We started by getting this helmet called “The Helm Of Obedience” and one of us had to wear it. Joey volunteered and immediately said that the Devil was talking to him and he told us that we had to follow him to the foyer and then told us to stay there. He went up the stairs and came back down with a gun. Which he then pointed at us.”

“At us? You walked away and left Gabbie trying to hide us all behind her, incase Joey shot at us!” Said Alex. “It looks like they still had their rivalry” thought Joey.

“Yeah, because he didn’t like me so I was hoping that if that stupid helmet told him to shoot someone, he’d shoot at me on the other side of the room. Away from Gabbie!” Destorm said loudly. The only people who where shocked by this were Joey and Bretman, the others knew how protective Destorm was of those he considered his friends. Gabbie said nothing but she moved until she was cuddled up to Destorm’s side with her head on his shoulder.

“Can I continue now?” Destorm sarcastically asked. “Good, the helmet then made Joey open the door and shoot some army dude outside.”

“Hope it was that bloody douche canoe, Colin.” Muttered Tim.

“Then Joey had to blow a horn and take the helmet off but the noise of the helmet made the two armies outside notice us. To get the gem we all had to split into two groups, the Confederates and The Dark Army.  
I was picked as leader of the Confederates and Joey was the leader of The Dark Army. We picked our team mates, I had Gabbie, Andrea, and Alex. Joey had Liza...”

“Well he had the Dark Army so he picked the brown girl.” Liza joked and Joey smiled at the memory of her saying the exact same thing at the time.

Destorm waited a moment before he continued. “Joey had Liza, Tana, and Tyler. The garden was split in half with half for each team and the balcony was the medic station. Each team would have some people stay to protect their area from the other team, while the others went into ‘enemy territory’ to search for 5 pegs, bright red for the Dark Army and stick brown for the Confederates. The winning team would all be safe from the challenge vote.  
Cash, the Confederate leader, blew his horn and off we went running around, like headless chickens. Eventually Joey’s team won after finding five pegs, loading and shooting a cannon to find the flag.  
Which meant that Gabbie, Andrea, Alex, and I would all be up for voting. Until Alex basically challenged me and said we should settle our rivalry, so I agreed and off we went to the pool. Alex asks for the gem but Cash tosses it into the pool with a million other gems and tells us that we had to find it in there.  
After a few minutes, a change of goggles, and a dance break, Alex found the gem. I was taken to the side of the pool and executed via a glowy, green arrow and poof. I’m in this hell hole.” Destorm finished.

“Okay, I’m not even sure what to say anymore.” Bretman announced. 

It was at this point Liza spoke.  
“I was the next to die. We went back to the lounge after watching Destorm be executed and we found a portrait of two kids and a little drawer with a note that said ‘children love candy’. We searched for the candy and found a box of gumdrops and put some in the little drawer, then we heard kids saying that they had been trapped in an oven by The Gingerbread Woman and that she would be back in an hour to turn on the oven. So we needed to save them but only kids were allowed in The Gingerbread Woman’s kitchen so we had to find their friend who would let us in, while some of us had to go and find The Gingerbread Woman’s meat pie recipe, don’t ask.  
We split into two groups to follow some candy trails, one to get the kid, the other to get the recipe. I went with Andrea, Joey, and Tyler to get the recipe so we followed our trail which lead us to a dining room. We looked around and realised that there were chocolates everywhere! We found a box and read a note that told us that we had to put the chocolates in the rights places but we realised that a lot of them looked the same so we would have to eat them.  
Eventually we complete the chocolate box and go to the next room with a bunch of presents which we opened to find a cake decorated to look like a severed head and we now had to eat this cake too. We then got the recipe and we could finally go and find the others, who had found the kid.”

“I named him Pepito.” Alex said.

“Cute name. So Pepito let us into the kitchen, we opened the oven and saved the kids. They all left and then The Gingerbread Woman’s assistant, Samson, walked in and we saw that he had the next gem. We asked him for it but he said that it was a gift from the GBW, then he realised that we had the meat pie recipe so he offered to trade the gem for the recipe and it was going alright until the GBW, herself, walked in with a tray of hot cocoa. She was nice and friendly until she saw that we had the recipe.”

There were several variations of “Uh oh” and “oh shit” muttered around the room.

“She accused Samson of giving it away or helping us to steal it.” Liza stopped here and took a few deep breaths and looked like she was a second away from bursting into tears. “So she took this huge meat cleaver, grabbed Samson’s hand, pinned it to the board, and hacked his fingers off with the meat cleaver.  
She then told us that we had to do the usual ‘vote for two’ shit and off we went to decide who we wanted to die next.  
As we were talking about it, Joey out of nowhere decides that he thinks that I could do this challenge, regardless of the fact that he’d still be chained up as a blood bag without me. Two names were called me and Tyler. We went to the kitchen and were told we each had half of the room and that we had to eat everything red. The loser would be baked alive in the GBW’s oven.  
Off we go and we got 3 maybe 4 minutes in before I wanted to hurl everywhere. I managed to move on first and then had to eat everything square shaped. Tyler caught up and eventually got ahead, but I managed to catch up too. We were then told that we had to eat a whole cake and Tyler finished his first.  
Samson told him that the last thing he had to do was take a bite of the GBW’s pie and he’d won.  
I wanted to cry but I told Tyler that it was okay and he should do it but Samson said that he’d give us the gem, if we helped kill the GBW.  
Tyler would take a bite of the pie and say that it tasted awful and that something was wrong with the oven so she had to check it out.  
As soon as we finished discussing the plan, the GBW walks in and Tyler takes a bite, says it’s awful, and she walks right into the oven. We push it shut and Samson turns it on, gives us the gems and tells us to go back to our friends. We all reunite...  
Then The Sorceress appears in a puff of smoke and Tana yeets a lollipop at her. She tells us that we forgot the most important part. One of us had to die. This orange harpy-woman drags Samson out and slits his throat in front of us. The door to the right of us opens and a blue harpy-woman runs out and grabs me. She dragged me inside, while I was kicking and screaming for help, the door closed and then I died.” Liza looked like she was debating with herself whether she should tell us a bit more.

“Have you ever heard the myth that a severed head can retain consciousness for twenty seconds after being detached from a body?” She asked. 

“No... why?” Bretman answered, thinking that he’d rather not know the reason.

“Because that myth is true and twenty seconds feels like an eternity when you can see your own headless body next to you.” Liza stated.

“I thought that harpy slit your throat!” Joey exclaimed.

“No. She cut my head off.” Liza said as she reached up and hesitantly untied the scarf from around her neck, revealing a horrific scar that wound all the way round her neck with ragged stitches.  
Bretman assumed the stitches were the only thing holding her head onto her body. 

Before anybody could say anything else Joey had ran outside, not caring about any of the dangers that may be lurking there, and the sound of vomiting reached the guests ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey,  
I hope this was alright and you enjoyed this chapter.
> 
> I will hopefully have a part 3 up soon, where Bretman will hear Tana, Gabbie, Alex, Joey, Colleen and Rosanna’s stories. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you have a lovely day/night.  
Messed_Up_Mind :D
> 
> Edit: Hey everyone, I’m trying to write part 3 but I’m stuck and was wondering if anyone could help me?   
I’m trying to write the events of ‘Endless Winter’s Night’ but I haven’t watched it in, like a year. I can’t remember what happens, apart from Tana dying.  
Can anyone help me out. I just need the basics of what happened in the episode.
> 
> Thank you very much :)


	4. Hey Youngblood, doesn't it feel like our time is running out.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a request from Mp198651.
> 
> It’s about Lauren and Alex getting picked to go into a challenge together.
> 
> Chapter title is from ‘The Phoenix’ by ‘Fall Out Boy’.

Joey didn’t know what to do.

He had finally reached the center of the labyrinth and found his frenemies who had been caught by The Minotaur. Lauren, Alex, Bretman, and Nikita.  
He was ready to release them, however there was a complication.

He had to pick two of them to be immediately put into the death challenge with no voting.  
If he picked Bretman, Nikita and the rest of the group would kill him as most of them had quickly warmed up to Bretman.  
If he picked Nikita, Bretman would hate him and possibly be able to influence the group against him.  
That left only two people. Lauren and Alex but whichever one of them returned, would try to kill him.  
There was no option where he could avoid making another enemy. 

After a few minutes, he was ready to reveal who would be in the challenge.  
“I’m so sorry but I pick Alex and Lauren.” He said feeling guilty.

“WHAT!?” Lauren yelled with anger on her face.  
“NO! I CAN’T!” Alex protested.  
Their protests were interrupted by a new voice. After turning to see who it was, Joey was surprised. He hadn’t expected The Sorceress to turn up.

“You must go now and return to the others. I will get them ready for their challenge.” She spoke. “The winner will return to you with the next key.”  
“Wait. How did you get in here? I thought this place was being guarded by The Minotaur?” Joey asked as he unchained Bretman and Nikita from their shackles.

“He’s outside, waiting to be called by The Gorgon so he can come in for the challenge. I simply entered from the other side of the labyrinth.” The Sorceress said in a bored tone, before she waved him away.  
Taking the hint Joey, Bretman, and Nikita returned to the others after wishing Lauren and Alex luck.

“Now I’ve got a note telling you what you must do. When the challenge starts you will each have to roam the labyrinth and look for bags containing building blocks to make a greek temple. Each of you have three bags, Alex, your bags are blue and Lauren, your bags are red. Once you find your 3 bags, you have to come back here and construct your temple.  
Whoever completes their temple first will get to claim the third piece of the medallion to control The Minotaur. With which, the winner can order The Minotaur to kill The Gorgon.” The Sorceress explained, then she stepped closer to them and spoke quietly.  
“But before you both begin, I have a little... ‘helping hand’ for you.” She said as she reached down to her skirt and moved it slightly out of the way. Showing Alex and Lauren the daggers she had in two holsters that were wrapped around her thighs.

“Where did you get those from?” Lauren asked quietly.  
“The Collector kept me in her study and when Joey released all of the exhibits, I was released as well and my daggers were in The Collector’s desk so I simply... reclaimed them.” She stated as she took two daggers from her holsters and handed them a dagger each. 

“Why are you helping us? What do you get out of this?” Alex questioned with a weary look in his eyes.  
“Don’t you remember that I said that I would gouge out The Gorgon’s eyes for turning Mortimer into stone? All I ask is that you get The Minotaur to bring you The Gorgon’s key but you leave The Gorgon for me to play with.” The Sorceress said with a cunning gleam in her eye.

“Done.” Lauren and Alex both stated at the same time. Happy that she would have her revenge, The Sorceress gave them a sarcastic curtsy before strutting out of the maze.

As soon as she was out of earshot Lauren turned to Alex with a hopeful look on her face.  
“We can both win this challenge!” She stated. “If we work together to find our pieces and finish constructing our temples at the same time, we can both win.” She said as she grabbed Alex’s hands in hers.  
“You’re right. Even if The Minotaur goes after one of us, the other can claim the medallion and order him away!” Alex said before he pressed a quick kiss to Lauren’s forehead. “We’ve got this.”

A horn blew telling them that it was time to start the challenge. Alex tucked his daggers into his belt and Lauren tucked hers into her bun, then grabbing each others hands, they ran off into the labyrinth together.

*

“Shall we stick together or spread out and pick up any bag we can find?” Alex asked.  
“In any other situation I would say stick together but we might have more luck finding the bags quicker if we split up. Plus we have our daggers so if The Minotaur turns up, we can try to defend ourselves.” Lauren replied.  
“Okay, but if you need help just yell and I’ll come running, like a knight in a leather jacket“ Alex said with a silly grin on his face, before he gave Lauren a quick kiss and ran off into the labyrinth. Lauren turned and walked away from him to cover more ground.

After a few minutes of rummaging in some of the labyrinth walls, Lauren had finally found a blue bag.  
“Alex! I’ve got a blue one.” She yelled out.  
“Good job! I’ve got a red on- oh I found a blue one!” He yelled back.  
“Keep going! We’ve got this.” Lauren yelled in excitement, they were both going to win this challenge or there will be hell to pay. 

Lauren continued on her path until she passed through the labyrinths center and tucked the blue bag she had collected just out of sight under the bushes, which made up the labyrinths walls, so it was safe from any sabotage attempts from The Minotaur.  
She turned a corner, only to see The Minotaur standing at the end of the pathway.  
“Shit!” She yelled as she quickly pulled the dagger out of her bun as The Minotaur began to charge at her.  
“Lauren? Hold on! I’m coming!” Alex screamed.  
The Minotaur was getting closer but Lauren was ready. She wasn’t going to be a damsel in distress again. She was ready this time and she was going to fight.

As The Minotaur lunged and swiped at her, Lauren quickly ducked down and to the side of the labyrinth wall as The Minotaur’s momentum carried it forwards. Reaching out with the dagger, Lauren managed to give it a deep cut on the outside of it’s muscular thigh, earning her a splatter of blood on her dress. The Minotaur made a horrible sound and hurried away, presumably to try and find Alex, who had just turned the corner to see Lauren standing there with blood on her dress and blade.  
“Are you okay?” He said as he pulled her into a hug.  
“I’m fine, it’s not my blood.” She replied. “Let’s go and get the rest of the bags.”

*

“I think this is the last one.” Lauren said as she returned to the center of the maze. Alex was already waiting there and gave her a hug.  
“We got this” he stated.  
“Let’s build some temples” Lauren joked with a hopeful smile.  
Both of them poured their pieces out onto their respective podiums and began to build.  
“I think this piece is going to go on top.” Lauren said as she held up a piece that looked like a obtuse triangle.  
“Looks like it. This is definitely the base piece.” He replied whilst he set the piece down and started to arrange the pillars to hold the roof. He and Lauren were neck and neck now, not that it mattered. They were both determined to leave this labyrinth alive and together. 

It was at this point they heard footsteps. The Minotaur was returning to try and capture them, because nothing during these stupid, death-filled nights is ever simple.  
“What should we do? Try to fight it off? One of us tries to distract it and the other stays behind to finish the temples as much as they can.” Lauren asked looking frustrated at The Minotaur’s reappearance.

“I reckon we do option 2. Do you want to stay and build, you’re better at it then I am.” Alex offered.

“Okay. Just be careful, alright?” Lauren said still trying to assemble some of the pillars according to the pictures. Alex walked up and kissed her forehead  
“Of course I will. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He said before he ran out of the center.

*

Alex looked around a corner before he stepped out and crept down the rest of the path. He quickly grabbed a branch on the bushes that made up the labyrinths walls and broke it halfway of the branch to mark his path.

“Where are you?” He muttered under his breath. It was at this point Alex realised that he could hear the footsteps again and they were coming closer. He pulled his dagger from his belt and held tightly while taking a few deep breaths.  
The Minotaur turned the corner and roared as soon as he saw Alex standing there. Alex could see the wound that Lauren’s dagger had left on The Minotaur’s outer thigh.  
‘Well, there’s my target’ he thought as The Minotaur began to charge. Alex actually ran towards The Minotaur with his knife at the ready, before he dropped to his knees and used his momentum to carry himself forward. As he skidded closer to The Minotaur he leaned back as far as he could possibly go without falling over and held up his dagger.

He came to a stop, stood up and turned around to see The Minotaur was limping away again.  
‘Jackpot! I wasn’t sure if that was actually going to work.’ Alex thought. He had skidded through the gap in The Minotaur’s legs and sliced a cut into it’s inner thigh on the same leg that Lauren had previously injured.  
The Minotaur was almost stumbling around now, hopefully it would be easier to run away from him now.

“Lauren! I’m coming back!” He yelled as he turned and ran in the opposite direction to get back to the center of the labyrinth using the broken branches of the labyrinths walls to guide him back.

*

“Thank goodness! Are you alright?” Lauren asked as she gave him a hug.

“I’m fine, I just scraped my knees a bit. I was awesome, I looked like a scene out of an action film.” Alex gushed. 

“I’m sure you did. But I have 2 pieces to go on your temple and then we just have to add the roofs.” Lauren explained.  
“Although I was thinking, what if we both put our roofs down at the same time? Surely it would confuse The Minotaur and give us some more time to assemble the medallion?” She said with an apprehensive look on her face.  
Alex just pressed a kiss to her lips and told her “You are absolutely brilliant. I didn’t think of that. Shall we finish this and get out of this stupid labyrinth.” 

“Yes. I can’t wait to see the look on Joey’s stupid face when we both come back.” She said with a mischievous look. She moved over to Alex’s podium, placed the final two blocks in their places and then returned to her own podium. Looking across at Alex as they both lifted their roof pieces and they nodded to each other.

“1. 2. 3.” They said together as they lowered the roofs into place. As soon as the pieces were down, they heard The Minotaur roar and heard it’s footsteps getting closer.  
“Where’s the medallion piece?” Lauren asked as Alex pulled the medallion from his jacket pocket and they both looked for the piece. There was a blinding flash of light and two things happened.

One was that another podium had appeared with the last medallion piece on it.

The second was that The Minotaur had charged into the center and grabbed Lauren by the throat and was now trying to strangle her. 

“LAUREN!” Alex screamed. He rushed forwards to help her, but The Minotaur smacked him away into one of the labyrinth walls, while still keeping a tight grip on Lauren’s neck.  
Lauren’s hands were scratching at any part of The Minotaur’s skin that she could find. She was even kicking at it’s shin as she struggled in it’s hold, but her face was beginning to go purple around the edges and her eyes had begun to roll back into her head as she was starting to pass out.  
“No!” Alex yelled, as he quickly stood up, rushed forwards, took out his dagger and stabbed The Minotaur in the back of the shoulder. It released her as it let out a wail of pain. Lauren had fallen to the floor and was grasping her neck as she breathed heavily while trying to get her breath back.  
Alex bent down to make sure she was alright, he saw that she already had some horrific bruises from The Minotaur’s iron grip.  
“Alex, get the medallion!” she attempted to speak, but her voice was hoarse from the horrible grip that The Minotaur had on her neck. Her hair had fallen out of it’s bun during her brief encounter with The Minotaur’s hands on her throat and was now around her shoulders and her dagger had fallen to the floor.  
While The Minotaur was flailing around, trying to remove Alex’s dagger from his shoulder, she quickly grabbed hers and plunged it into The Minotaur’s foot.  
It let out another bellow of pain and Lauren ripped the dagger from it’s foot, before she stabbed it into his hand as he reached down to swipe at her.

Alex had grabbed the medallion piece but his hands were shaking from the adrenaline and he was having a hard time fitting the pieces together.  
He finally managed to slot them together and cried out “Minotaur! Stop bring me The Gorgon’s key!” 

The Minotaur immediately stopped trying to grab at Lauren, although all it was really succeeding in doing was getting covered in scratches and cuts from Lauren’s dagger from where she had managed to stand up and was partially dodging it’s attacks while returning the blows.  
The Minotaur turned and began limping it’s way out of the labyrinth to look for The Gorgon.  
Lauren and Alex held each other in a tight hug before they shared a kiss.

“Oh shit!” Lauren suddenly pulled away. “We promised The Sorceress that she could deal with The Gorgon for Mortimer!” She grabbed Alex’s hand and they both began to run out of the labyrinth together.  
*  
When they got back to the entrance of the labyrinth they ran to The Gorgon’s lair to see if The Minotaur had killed The Gorgon.  
Phew, it hadn’t  
“Minotaur! Don’t kill The Gorgon! Just bring me her key!” Lauren said as she held the medallion up.  
The Minotaur was holding The Gorgon by her arms and was removing the key from around her neck. It had a hand on the back of her head forcing her to look at the ground so she couldn’t turn anyone into stone.

“How are you both alive?” The Gorgon asked “One of you is supposed to die!” 

“Well, we simply said no thanks.” Alex joked and they both giggled. Alex took the key from The Minotaur’s hand and showed it to Lauren. 

“We got it!” Alex hugged Lauren close to his chest, happy that they’d both survived.

“Yes. Yes, you did.” The Sorceress said as she walked into the lair. “And you kept your promise to me.” The way she looked at The Gorgon sent chills down Lauren and Alex’s spines. “Keep the daggers, I have lots more of them. You never know if you might need them again.”

*

“Ready?” Alex asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Lauren replied.

They pulled the doors to the lounge open and walked through them, hand in hand. They were immediately greeted with exclamations of surprise.  
They must had looked awful.  
Alex had bits of leaves and twigs stuck in his hair and jacket, a cut on his forehead from where he hit the labyrinth walls after The Minotaur threw him, scrapes on his knees and some blood on his hands and jacket.  
Lauren had blood all over her dress and hands, a horrific purple and blue bruise going all the way around her throat, her hair had fallen out of her bun and was now around her shoulders, and a split bottom lip.  
They both were holding the daggers lent to them by The Sorceress and the blades were dripping blood onto the floor.

“Oh my god! You’re both back!” Colleen shouted.  
“You did it!” Yelled Tana.  
“Holy shit!” Destorm said “I wasn’t expecting this.”  
“Congrats guys, I’m so glad that you’re both back. Are you okay?” Rosanna cried out as she joyfully hugged Mat.  
“Welcome back you two.” Bretman said with a smile.

There was one person though who wasn’t happy, he looked terrified.  
Lauren and Alex looked at each other and had a silent conversation with their eyes. They walked over to the one guest who wasn’t happy to see them.

“Hey, Joey. We want to have a little chat with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey,
> 
> I hope you all liked it. There will be a spinoff chapter for this story coming out and there will be a part 2 as well.
> 
> I’m trying to write part 3 of Bretman finding out what happened to the guests, but I’ve hit a bump as I’m trying to write the events of the episode ‘Endless Winter’s Night’ but I haven’t watched that episode in about a year so I can’t remember what happens.  
I would really appreciate it if anyone could help me out by commenting anything about the events of the episode. It doesn’t have to be detailed, it can be simple and anything will be very much appreciated.
> 
> Thank you very much and Happy Holidays!


	5. Change you like a remix. (Spinoff)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a spinoff of the previous story, which was requested by Mp198651.
> 
> Chapter title is from ‘The Phoenix’ by ‘Fall Out Boy’.

“1. 2. 3.” They said together as they lowered the roofs into place. As soon as the pieces were down, they heard The Minotaur roar and heard it’s footsteps getting closer.  
“Where’s the medallion piece?” Lauren asked as Alex pulled the medallion from his jacket pocket and they both looked for the piece. There was a blinding flash of light and two things happened.

One was that another podium had appeared with the last medallion piece on it.

The second was that The Minotaur had charged into the center and grabbed Lauren by the throat and was now trying to strangle her. 

“LAUREN!” Alex screamed. He rushed forwards to help her, but The Minotaur smacked him away into one of the labyrinth walls, while still keeping a tight grip on Lauren’s neck.  
Lauren’s hands were scratching at any part of The Minotaur’s skin that she could find. She was even kicking at it’s shin as she struggled in it’s hold, but her face was beginning to go purple around the edges and her eyes had begun to roll back into her head as she was starting to pass out.  
“No!” Alex yelled, as he quickly stood up, rushed forwards, took out his dagger and stabbed The Minotaur in the back of the shoulder. It didn’t work as he had hoped it would, The Minotaur still had a tight grip on Lauren’s neck.

There was only one thing that he had left to try. He run to the other side of the center and grabbed the medallion. With shaking hands he tried to put it together until the pieces snapped together.

“Minotaur! Bring me The Gorgon’s key without harming her!” He demanded and The Minotaur finally released Lauren and stomped out of the labyrinth.  
Alex rushed over to Lauren who was lying limp on the ground. Please please be okay he thought. 

He kneeled down next to Lauren’s limp body and as gently as he possibly could, he moved her head to look at him.  
She had bruises all over her neck and they were almost black in some places. It was at this point that Lauren’s eyes opened a sliver.  
But this didn’t give Alex any hope, the sclera of her eyes were bloody and she even had blood running down from one ear.

“Ale-“ Lauren started to speak until she began to cough up blood, which ran down her cheek. “Alex... I’... I’m.. sorry...”

“Don’t be sorry for anything, okay? We’ll get you back to the lounge and then we can get you fixed up” he said as tears began to run down his cheeks. 

“I.. wa... ant you... to li... live” she wheezed “to... survive fo... for me” she finished.

“No, we can get The Sorceress to use her magic to fix it as then we can both go back and kick his ass together, okay?” He said.

“I... love... you” she whispered before her body went limp. Her eyes had gone dull and stared blankly at the stars above them.

“LAUREN! NO NO NO NO! DON’T YOU DIE ON ME! LAUREN!” he screamed as he let out uncontrollable tears. He clutched her body closer to him and rocked back and forth with her in his arms.

He felt numb, he had lost her again. He felt like Orpheus, so close to leading Eurydice out of the underworld until he turned around and ensured that she would have to descend back down into hell.  
Oh no! No! He had forgotten about that... Lauren died and now she is going to spend the rest of eternity in hell. No no no.  
This was his fault. If he’d been quicker with his knife. If he’d been quicker with the medallion, she’d still be here. It was his fault.

“Please... don’t take... her... away from me... again” he said through sobs, he gently picked up Lauren’s body in his arms as he stood up. He adjusted her until he was carrying her bridal style and he began to exit the labyrinth.  
*

The Sorceress was already outside, having her revenge on The Gorgon. She turned around at the sound of footsteps and saw Alex walking towards her with Lauren lying limp in his arms and the medallion clenched in one hand. 

“Minotaur, get the key and then let The Gorgon turn you to stone.” He ordered and The Minotaur had no choice but to obey. It stomped forwards, snatched the key from around her neck and handed it to The Sorceress as Alex’s hands were full. It then turned around, grabbed The Gorgon’s chin and raised her head up so it could look her in the eyes.  
A moment later and The Minotaur was nothing but a stone statue of a horrific memory. 

“I’m sorry for your loss.” The Sorceress said as she hesitantly walked towards him. Since Alex had both his hands busy holding Lauren, she gently reached out and closed Lauren’s eyes, hiding the bloody sclera that had been caused by burst blood vessels. Before she gently picked up Lauren’s arms and rested them across her stomach and gently placed the key in one of Lauren’s hands  
“Will you help me?” Alex asked The Sorceress, which she had honestly not expected. 

“Of course. What do you need me to do?” She questioned.

“Whatever you can to get that motherfucker to smash into so many pieces that it turns to dust and then do whatever you want to The Gorgon.” He said and all The Sorceress could think was that ‘Alex is full of surprises’. 

“It would be my absolute pleasure.” She stated. ‘If he survives long enough to see my takeover of the museum, I’ll ask him to join me, he’d make a good lieutenant... or maybe I’ll let him go.’ She thought.

At this point, Alex had turned and began to walk back to the lounge with Lauren still in his arms.  
“Give Joey hell! Make him regret sending you both in!” She shouted to his retreating back.  
“Don’t worry, I plan to!” He yelled back over his shoulder. 

“Well, Joey is certainly in for it. Isn’t he?” The Sorceress mockingly asked The Gorgon. “Now, where were we? Oh yes, destroying your pet and then it’s your turn.  
A few minutes later and The Minotaur was nothing more than rubble and dust on the ground.  
Taking out her daggers The Sorceress stalled towards The Gorgon. “This is for Mortimer” she said as she brought a dagger down into her shoulder.  
“And this is for Lauren... and for Alex.” She said as she swiped her dagger across The Gorgon’s eyes, blinding her and she gleefully listened to The Gorgon’s screams.  
*

The guests were getting worried. Lauren and Alex... no, not and... or... were back yet.  
Joey was sitting in the corner on his own with a red handprint on his cheek from where Tana had slapped him, when she found out about him sending Alex and Lauren into the challenge.  
Destorm and Tim had to actually hold her back to prevent her from beating him up. They were now sitting with Gabbie talking about the remaining keys.  
Bretman and Nikita were sitting together whispering about something. Mat and Rosanna were talking about Oli and Mat had told Rosanna that she was now an aunt to a beautiful baby boy named Grayson. Rosanna was absolutely delighted and had tears of joy streaming down her face, the news had distracted her from the stress of waiting to see who would come back. Colleen and Justine were sitting together talking with Liza about the silly club name she came up with for them. (The betrayed and boxed club. They surprisingly found it funny). Lele and Tana were standing together in the corner muttering about something that included Joey, a toilet, and a dagger. 

Just when Liza was going to suggest going to look for them. The doors banged open and there was Alex... wi- with... Lauren limp in his arms.  
Alex ignored everyone as he stalked towards Joey.  
“THIS IS YOUR FAULT! YOU ARE THE REASON THAT SHE IS DEAD AND IS SUFFERING IN HELL! Do you hear me Joey! This is your fucking fault!” He screamed. 

“Oh my god. Alex, I’m so sorr-“ Joey started.  
“No, you’re not. If you were, you would have tried to do something other than save your own ass from the challenge!” Alex interrupted. “You don’t give a shit about us unless we’re on your side, defend you and you have a use for us. Because if not, it’s perfectly fine if we get murdered for you because it serves your purpose. You don’t care who dies as long as it’s not you!” Alex yelled. 

“Alex, hold on.” Destorm said as he stepped towards Alex, who was still holding Lauren’s body. Destorm reached out and began to take Lauren into his own arms.  
“I know you are going to want to hold onto her for as long as possible, but let me take her and we can figure out where we can lay her to rest in a minute. Okay?” He stated softly. Alex just nodded in reply and Destorm took Lauren into his arms. He walked over to one of the empty sofas and gently laid her down. Rosanna immediately walked over and gave Alex a questioning look, when he nodded, she took out a handkerchief and began to carefully wipe some of the blood off of Lauren’s face and neck.  
She gently removed the key that was clasped in Lauren’s hands and handed it to Alex, before she grabbed Mat and Tim to leave the room, presumably to find a sheet or blanket to cover her with. 

“I hate you. I fucking hate you so fucking much, Joey!” Alex yelled again. “Lauren didn’t deserve to die. She thought we could both get out and as soon as we finished together, The Minotaur came running in and grabbed her by the throat. I tried to save her with the dagger that The Sorceress gave to me but it just threw me into the labyrinth wall. So I tried to assemble the medallion but by the time I ordered The Minotaur to get the key, Lauren was already dying.  
“Her neck is so bruised it’s almost black. The Minotaur strangled her so hard that the sclera of her eyes turned red because the pressure caused the blood vessels in her eyes to pop.”

Alex took a few deep breaths, feeling like he was going to have another breakdown.  
There was a knock at the door and Rosanna, Mat and Tim returned with a white sheet. Rosanna walked over and handed one end to Alex and together they covered Lauren’s body.  
With the blood on her face gone, her hair around her shoulders partially hiding some of the bruises and her eyes closed, she almost looked like she was sleeping. Alex knelt down by her side, pressed a kiss to her forehead, told her how much he loved her and then gently covered her up with the rest of the sheet.

He stood again and turned to Joey.  
“Do you know what the last thing she said to was? Hmm? She told me that she loved me and that she wanted me to live for her. To survive for her. So that’s what I’m going to do, it’s going to be hell but I’ll do it because she asked me to. And if you get in my way, Joey.” Alex said as he stalked towards him with murder in his eyes.  
“If you even try to stop me from completing Lauren’s last wish, I will make a deal with The Collector, I will trade you for all of our freedom and I will leave you here in Lauren’s old exhibition case to rot for the rest of eternity. Do you understand me.” He asked calmly.  
It was terrifying, the nonchalant tone of his voice as he threatened Joey was one of the most terrifying things Joey had ever seen.  
So he did the smart thing.

“Perfectly.” Joey replied with his skin as white as a sheet and terror in his eyes. “I understand you perfectly.”

The most unexpected thing happened next. There was a slow clapping from behind them. The Sorceress had finally returned and she was absolutely covered in the blood of The Gorgon.  
“Well, I couldn’t have said it better myself, Alex. A perfect threat.” She congratulated gleefully. “Absolutely perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey,
> 
> I hope you all liked it.  
I am going to change the order of the chapters revolving around this story once I have the 3rd and final instalment finished so the song lyrics of the chapter titles will make more sense
> 
> I’m trying to write part 3 of Bretman finding out what happened to the guests, but I’ve hit a bump as I’m trying to write the events of the episode ‘Endless Winter’s Night’ but I haven’t watched that episode in about a year so I can’t remember what happens.  
I would really appreciate it if anyone could help me out by commenting anything about the events of the episode. It doesn’t have to be detailed, it can be simple and anything will be very much appreciated.
> 
> Thank you very much and Happy Holidays!


	6. “I dreamed a dream in times gone by, when hope was high and life worth living.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I put the guests through hell... again? Mainly focused around Laurex.

It was Christmas time at the Museum and the guests all hated it with a passion. They tried to all celebrate together but The Collector liked to give them presents. Were they good presents? Of course not. The Collector liked to torture the guests because she was a sick and twisted person.  
Which is why all of the guests were trying to escape and they were almost to the exit. They’d waited till the Museum closed at sundown and then Rosanna had stood near the weird treestump like machine in the center of the guests exhibition and when she gave the signal to the other guests, they’d shoved the guards onto the exhibition podiums and Rosanna activated the machine trapping them in the soundproof cases.   
Of course, since Rosanna didn’t push her guard in, he was still free. Well, he was until Alex had just punched him in the face and knocked him out after the guard hit his head on the side of another exhibition case. All the guests had linked hands and legged it towards the main entrance. They could practically taste freedom and they all had so many things that they wanted to do when they escaped.

Until they turned right towards the main entrance and saw The Collector standing there with most of her guards present and waiting for them. The guests panicked and scattered, each trying to get away from the guards who were now chasing them, hunting them like prey.  
Rosanna was caught quickly, her legs too short to cover more ground while running. Destorm and Gabbie had gotten the furthest away before they got caught, but they were still dragged back into the Museum with the rest of the guests. With every single guard in the building surrounding them to thwart any other escape attempts.

As they arrived back in their exhibition room, the guests saw that the guards they had trapped in their cases had been released.   
Each guard was standing there with a different item, presumably instruments of various tortures. 

Rosanna was the first to be dragged forwards by two of the guards, despite the guests protests, and they quickly shoved her arms into the straitjacket that the guard that Alex had knocked out was holding. One of the 2 guards held a sharp fork like metal stick with spikes on both ends up to Rosanna’s neck and used the leather straps connected to it, to fasten it around her neck. The metal fork forced Rosanna to keep her head up unless she wanted the spikes to dig into to the underside of her chin and into the skin just below her collarbones. The guards then dragged her away into a small room down the corridor as the group shouted after her. 

Tim was next after he attempted to help Rosanna. He was dragged forwards and handcuffed as well as having a black hood placed on his head, it looked like the bags that prisoners used to wear when they climbed the scaffold to their death sentence. Lauren spotted a blindfold and headphones also being carried by another guard leading Tim away, she quickly realised what they were going to do to him. Sensory deprivation.

Colleen was grabbed next, handcuffed and then thrown over the shoulder of the guard holding her while she kicked and screamed. Before he started to walk in the opposite direction that Tim and Rosanna had gone. All the guests knew what was going to happen to Colleen, as that was the room where The Collector kept her own iron maiden. 

Justine was next and had the same as Colleen. Only her guard had a shovel and carried her outside after knocking her out with a hit from the shovel, causing blood to spill from her nose.

Destorm was grabbed and had his legs kicked out from under him so he hit the floor. He was then handcuffed and dragged away to the same corridor that Tim and Rosanna had walked down.

Gabbie was putting up a fight as she was wrestling with the two guards who were attempting to lock a ‘scold’s bridle’ onto her head. The rest of the guests cheered when she had managed kicked one in the crotch. Until she too was dragged away, although she was still fighting.

Lele was grabbed and had a cloth drugged, presumably with Chloroform, held over her mouth and nose until she fell limp. She was then carried bridal style to the other side of the guests exhibition room, through a door that nobody had passed through yet and down the corridor to somewhere unknown. 

Liza was grabbed by a guard, fitted with handcuffs and shoved down the corridor that lead to a boiler room. While Tana was handcuffed and taken to a freezer room. Both of these rooms had been built specially for the Museum, under the orders of The Collector.

A guard stalked towards Alex holding something in his hands, it wasn’t until the guard got closer that Alex realised what is was and begun to struggle against the guard holding him.

It was a collar...   
It looked like it was made from pieces of human skin sloppily stitched together with 3 metal rings added onto various parts of it. As well as a large eye that looked like it had melted into the skin of the collar around it to give the appearance of a real eye with eyelids. In short, it looked like something that came out of a horror movie.

Alex was still struggling against his guard not wanting to wear that collar but the guard had a very tight grip. Lauren was yelling at the guards to stop in the background but Alex could barely hear her, all he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears as the guards began to place the collar around his neck.   
Then something strange happened.   
The guards let both Lauren and Alex go. They ran to each other only for Alex to stop as he heard The Collector’s voice.

“Alex, stop.” The Collector ordered. 

‘Yeah right, I’m getting to Lauren’ he thought until he realised that he couldn’t move. ‘What the hell?’ 

“What did you do to him?” Lauren yelled as she was now standing in front of Alex.

“Well, this was a little gift from a friend of mine. The Carnival Master, I believe he was the one responsible for the deaths of little Rosanna and poor Colleen. Once his daughter, Lucy, proved that she was worthy of being his daughter by killing her boyfriend and chopping him into bits, The Carnival Master gave her that collar.  
‘The collar of control’ I’m certain that you can guess what it does? Why it was even used to one of Joey’s little disposables.” The Collector explained.   
“Now it’s taking control of Alex and he will do what ever I want him too. For example, Alex slap Lauren.”

Alex was horrified when his body started to follow the command and slapped Lauren. Hard. The worst thing was the look of terror on Lauren’s face as she brought her hand to her cheek.

“Lauren.” Alex said trying to resist the collars attempts to silence him. “Please get away from me. I’m not safe.” He pleaded.  
Lauren kissed his cheek quickly, before she turned around and ran down the corridor to try and get away. She ran through several corridors, turning left and right down the hallways and even going up a set of stairs that she had come across. As Lauren ran through the building, she could occasionally hear the other guests getting punished.   
She passed a window and saw Justine still unconscious in a guards arms and being placed into a coffin with her hands and ankles tied together.   
She passed 2 rooms and heard Tana and Liza banging on their doors and begging to be let out. Tana was stuttering through her pleas as her teeth were probably chattering badly because of the cold and Liza yelped every time she banged on the door as it was probably hot enough by now to burn her hands.  
She turned right, sprinted down another hallway and passed another door where she could hear the sounds of water splashing, a cattle prod being turned on and the screams of Lele and Destorm.  
As much as she wanted to, Lauren knew that she couldn’t help anyone. It would just make the punishments worse.

“Alex. Go fetch her for me.” The Collector ordered after a few minutes of letting Lauren run to start the game of ‘Cat And Mouse’ that she would very much enjoy watching. Alex again tried to resist the collar with no luck. He began to sprint down the corridors of the Museum after Lauren. “Stop it, leave her alone! Don’t listen to them!” He yelled at himself, desperately trying to stop himself. When this didn’t work, he even tried to punch himself in the face to see if that would break the collar’s hold on him but it had no other effect then giving him a red handprint on his cheek. His feet took him all around the Museum and with every moment that passed Alex hoped that Lauren could hide somewhere and avoid him.   
The effects of the collar were scaring him even more than they did in the beginning. At first, while he had no control of his body, he could still speak but now it felt like his lips had been sewn shut and now he couldn’t speak or even move his lips no matter how hard he tried.   
In the beginning, he’d been aware of everything that he was doing while under The Collector’s control, but now? Now he had begun to feel like he was fading away as his body completed it’s assigned tasks automatically. He had no control anymore and it was terrifying.

Then the thing that he had dreaded most happened. He caught sight of Lauren as she ran into the hallway as he entered it and as soon as she saw him, her eyes widened and she sprinted away from him. Although he felt so tired from running, his body quickly caught up to Lauren, wrapped his arms around her waist and picked her up so her feet couldn’t meet the floor to run away again.  
A moment later The Collector entered the corridor with two guards beside her.   
“Alex take Lauren and follow us.” And again, without his permission, Alex’s body began to move while he screamed inside his head where nobody could hear him. Lauren was writhing in his hold trying to escape but his arms just tightened the grip that they had around her waist.   
After a minute of walking, the group entered a room that held only 1 thing. A old large wooden chair that had leather straps at the arms, legs, waist and neck of it to restrain someone in it. As well as several dark stains over it’s surface that were probably patches of blood that had soaked into the wood of the chair.

“Alex. Put Lauren into the chair and strap her into the restraints.” The Collector said and Lauren screamed.

“Please! Please Alex stop it! Please just put me down! Alex! Put me down!” Lauren screamed, her voice breaking as tears began to run down her cheeks as she begged Alex to let her go. Still, Alex just carried her to the chair and roughly dropped her into it, causing Lauren to let out a yelp at the sudden drop. Alex first tied her wrists into the leather straps on the arms of the chair before he was kicked in the groin and fell to the ground in pain.   
With another order from The Collector, Alex stood back up and began to restrain her legs to prevent anymore kicking before he finally managed to get Lauren’s waist and neck into the final leather straps, leaving her with nowhere to go and no hope of escape.  
Finally realising that she had absolutely no way to escape whatever was ever was coming next, she began to sob louder than she had before and let her head fall to her chest until she choked. As she jerked her head back up, she realised that she wouldn’t be able to breathe with the strap around her neck as it would choke her if she put her head down. Her chest rose and fell unevenly as she harshly hiccuped through her sobs, her tears beginning to sink into her dress and leaving small darks circles on the light fabric where they fell.

“Alex, you’re going to give Lauren a little haircut.” The Collector said while holding out an old straight razor that the guard on the left of her had placed in her hand when she had gestured for it.   
Inside of his head, Alex had begun to call The Collector every single swear word that he could think of. ‘You stupid sick son of a bitch. One day I’m going to pay you back for everything you have done to us, you sick bitch!’ He screamed in his head.  
“Cut it all off. Now.” She demanded as she gestured for the other guard to bring her a chair to sit on so she could watch Lauren cry with a sick pleasurable grin upon her face. Alex took the razor from her hand and walked behind Lauren as she began to plead with him.

“Alex! Please! Please, don’t cut my hair off! Alex!” She cried as she felt his hands roughly take her hair out of the bun it was in until it fell around her shoulders. He picked up a few locks of her hair and begun to scrape the blade against it, back and forth, until the locks in his hand came free from her head and left behind a short piece of hair on her scalp, barely an inch long.  
“Please, please stop. Please tell him to stop.” Lauren begged looking directly into The Collector’s eyes. The Collector stared back and actually looked like she was considering it, until she slapped Lauren.  
“I don’t think I will because I like seeing you cry.” The Collector said with a demented and smug smile.

“Alex, drop the hair in Lauren’s lap. She should be able to think about her new hair style, shouldn’t she?” The Collector asked rhetorically and laughed when Lauren screamed at the sight of her once long beautiful blonde hair being dumped into her lap. Again, Alex took hold of some of her hair, hacked at it with the practically blunt razor and then dumped the hair into Lauren’s lap.   
Time seemed to slow down for them as Lauren lost her hair and as Alex was having an internal mental breakdown, unable to communicate with his girlfriend to tell her how sorry he was for doing this to her.  
After a while, Alex had finally reached the last of the long locks of hair on Lauren’s head and took hold of them as he hacked it off before he dropped it into Lauren’s lap with the rest of her hair. 

The Collector was enjoying herself a lot. Lauren’s cries and screams throughout her punishment had brought a demented look to The Collector’s eyes as she watched Lauren slowly breakdown until the girl had gone completely unresponsive. Her eyes had glazed over, yet she still had tears running down her face. She didn’t scream anymore but she whimpered with every handful of hair that fell into her lap.   
She had blood dripping from one of her fingers onto a small puddle on the floor. At one point during the haircut, she had gripped the arm of the chair so hard that she had accidentally ripped one of her nails right off her finger and let out a scream at the pain.   
The Collector was annoyed that the collar had completely taken over Alex’s body as she had ordered him several times throughout the punishment to show her what he was feeling but the collar had stopped it as it prevents it’s victims emotions from showing to mentally torture them more as they have no way of communicating with the outside world. The Collector understood the reason but she still wanted to see both of them break down, not just Lauren.

At last, The Collector was finally bored of Alex and Lauren now that they were both pretty much unresponsive. She had ordered her guards to lock them both in separate rooms for a week, the same punishment that all the guests had after their torture sessions had finished. 

*

One week had finally passed and the guests were being reunited one by one. Tana and Liza were released first since their rooms were next to each others and they quickly hugged once they saw each other. Liza had some healing burns on the palms of her hands while Tana had the signs of frostbite on her fingers, nose and presumably on her toes as well.   
Justine was let out next and as soon as the door to her room was open, she had run out of there as fast as she could. A guard was closing the doors as soon as each guest left their room. She quickly joined the hug and both Tana and Liza saw that she had smudges of dirt on her face and clothes. They just hugged her tighter.  
Colleen walked out and immediately walked over to Justine as they’d related over their methods of death and quickly became friends during their time in the Museum.  
Destorm was the next out and he didn’t run from his room, he walked out but the girls could see that he was limping. He walked over and the girls opened their arms in an offer to let him join their hug. He joined in hesitantly but quickly backed out of it once another door opened.   
It was Lele, who walked out with her arms wrapped around her self and her hands were twitching slightly. She said nothing as she walked to an empty exhibition case and slumped down with her back to it, the others took that as a sign that she wanted to be left alone.   
Gabbie was released next and she immediately walked into Destorm’s arms as soon as she saw him. They followed Lele’s lead and walked over to sit at the base of an exhibition case together.   
Then Tim was shoved into the room by a guard, who had a large red mark on his face. He flinched at the bright light of the room and then turned around to the guard.

“Why are you still here? Go on, bugger off.” He said, childishly poking his tongue out at the guard once he turned his back. He walked over to everyone else to ask if they were alright and got multiple variations on ‘not really’ to which he answered ‘same’. It partly achieved it’s goal and a few of them had let a trace of a smile appear on their faces.   
Rosanna appeared next, looking like she hadn’t slept at all. She had dark bags under her eyes and her whole body seemed to shake as she stepped into the room. She only took a few steps into the room when she closed her eyes and she collapsed to the floor.  
Or at least, she would’ve if Tim hadn’t already been walking towards her and managed to catch her in the nick of time. All the other guests had come over to see if she was alright.  
Rosanna opened her eyes to see everyone standing around her and sheepishly said “I haven’t slept at all” Before she let out a large yawn and everyone let out a relieved sigh knowing that she was roughly okay.

The final door opened and the atmosphere of the room went from ‘uneasy’ to ‘absolutely downright awful’ as Alex stepped out first.  
His face was completely emotionless and his eyes seemed empty. It was awful, he looked like an empty husk of himself. 

“Shit.” Destorm said while bringing his head into his hands and gently shaking his head.

“What is it?” Asked Justine as she stepped forwards.

“He’s wearing a collar.” Tana stated quietly. She walked towards Alex and reached her right hand out.  
“Alex? Are you alright? Do you want me to take the collar off your neck?” She asked gently, only for Alex to turns and shoved her away as soon as she mentioned the collar.  
“Alex, please just let me take it off? It won’t take long.” Tana tried again. 

Again, Alex just turned and pushed her away so Destorm came over next.  
“Alex. Just let us take it off.” He said.

“He won’t let you take it off unless I tell him too.” The Collector stated as she walked into the room, making all of the guests, except Alex, jump at her sudden appearance. “The only way that he’ll let you take the collar off without my permission is to tackle and pin him to the floor while someone takes it off of him. Have fun.” She said over her shoulder as she walked out of the room with her usual entourage of two guards.

“Great. Now what do we do?” Tana asked sarcastically as she threw her hands up in the air. “Wait a second. Where’s Lauren? I haven’t seen her.” 

“Maybe Alex knows where she is? If not, I’m sure we’ll be able to find her in one of the rooms over there. They’re all unlocked now.” Gabbie said.

“We do what she said. Pin him to the floor and get it off him.” Colleen said bluntly. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but we can’t just leave it on him so it’s the only option that we’ve got.” She looked down at her feet and took a deep breath. “So who wants to help pin him and who wants to get it off him?” She asked them all.

“I might be able to get it off?” Rosanna said hesitantly. “I’m smaller so I probably won’t be much help to hold him but I could try and get it off?” She suggested.

“So I guess that settles it. Ro will take it off while the rest of us hold him still.” Tim said. “Is everyone ready?”

“Not really, what if Alex bolts before we can get hold of him?” Justine asked.

“Actually that’s a good question... for you.” Lele replied. “Some of us could stand at the doors and block them off?” 

“Sounds a good a plan as any. Let’s get on with it.” Destorm said as he walked to the main entrance and Gabbie walked over to one of the smaller doors at the side of the room.   
Tim walked over to Alex and signaled for some of the guests to go behind him and come up that way. He grabbed hold of Alex’s shoulders, Tana grabbed hold one of his arms and Lele grabbed the other.   
As soon as they grabbed onto Alex, he started to writhe in their hold and scream. The screams were awful, they were hoarse and loud.   
The rest of the guests grabbed onto Alex as he tried to kick out at them. Colleen grabbed onto one ankle as he kicked so Alex was stuck standing on one leg. Rosanna quickly came up behind him and reached for the buckle on the collar but she couldn’t quite reach it.   
“I can’t reach.” She said.

“Hold on. I’m sorry about this, Alex.” Colleen said as she let go of Alex’s leg and once it was on the floor, she quickly hit the back of his knee so his legs buckled and he fell to his knees on the floor. The guests held him tightly as he was still screaming.  
Rosanna reached up and could finally reached up to the buckle. She undid it and pulled the collar away from Alex’s neck and the screaming immediately stopped.   
Rosanna yelped as she finally looked at the collar and wretched when she saw that it had a large eye melted into it and felt like it was made of skin.   
“That’s disgusting!” She yelped as she let the collar fall onto the floor. No one really wanted to touch the dam thing so they left it there and focused on Alex. But no one saw Gabbie pick up the collar and tuck it into part of her dress.  
‘There.’ she thought ‘let’s see The Collector get that back when she can’t find it.’

The guests had long since let go of Alex and backed away to give him some space to breath.  
“Where’s Lauren?” He coughed as his voice had grown hoarse from the screaming. “Lauren?” He yelled as he stood up and looked around frantically.

“Alex, please calm down. We can find Lauren together, okay?” Rosanna said as she walked closer without touching him, not wanting to make him uncomfortable. 

“No! you don’t understand! She made me hurt her!” He yelled as he began to stumble towards the doors that everyone had come out of.

“What do you mean ‘she made you hurt her’?” Asked Lele. “Wait, did The Collector make you hurt Lauren?” She asked in shock.

“Yes! And I couldn’t stop myself from doing it!” He yelled and everyone could see that he was distraught. He had tears in eyes that looked split seconds away from falling down his cheeks.

“Alex, we’ll find her! I promise. Okay? But please, calm down. We will all look for her.” Tana said urgently as she offered him her hand and pulled him to his feet.

“Yeah, yeah you’re right. Okay.” Alex breathed. “Which rooms did everyone come from? If there’s another one that might be where she is. Let’s look in the rooms.” He said as he walked to a random door and opened it. Everyone looked at each other and Tana shrugged. 

“We might as well copy him.” She said as everyone walked to a random door and opened it up. She opened her chosen door and peered inside the room. It was dark inside and the only light was let in when she opened the door.   
Tana could just about see something sitting in the corner, she looked around for a light but saw nothing that could fir that purpose.   
She quickly looked around the outside of the room and saw a small dial by one of the lamps on the wall, having no better option, she turned the dial a small amount to the left and saw the room light up a bit from the corner of her eye.

As she crept back into the room, closed the door behind her and looked to where she had seen the shape in the corner.   
“Oh my god.” Tana had found Lauren but at the state Lauren was in, Tana didn’t think that Lauren would want to see anyone.  
Lauren was sitting in the corner, curled up in a ball with her knees tucked to her chest. As Tana gently stepped closer to Lauren and finally saw her face, her heart broke. 

Lauren’s hair had been almost completely cut off. The hair that was left on her head was short and ragged, like a ‘pixie cut’ style but done by a two year old with blunt safety scissors. Lauren flinched and whimpered as Tana came closer so she got to her knees on the floor, making herself seem smaller, and crawled towards her. (Pride be damned) Lauren turned her head slowly and looked at Tana with tears in her eyes and streaming down her face. 

“Tana?” She asked hopefully, and Tana didn’t even know that her heart could hurt so badly. 

“Yeah, Lauren. It’s me, I’m here.” She reassured her and Tana was surprised when she let out a sob and threw her arms around her.

“It’s ugly, isn’t it?” Lauren asked after a minute. “My hair... it’s ugly, isn’t it.” She clarified and Tana’s heart broke again. Lauren pulled away from the hug and ran her hand over her hair.   
“She made Alex do it. With that stupid sadistic collar.” Lauren explained and Tana realised that was why Alex was so worried that he’d hurt her. It was well known among the group that Lauren would fiddle with her hair and run her fingers through it when she was anxious and The Collector had made her boyfriend take away one of the things that made her feel secure and safe.  
The list of reasons why Tana hated The Collector gained several more points after she heard that.

“We got the collar off of Alex. He’s really worried about you.” Tana explained. “As soon as we got it off, he wanted to look for you. Do you want to see him?” Tana asked gently while her arms where still wrapped around Lauren’s body.   
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to though.” She told her. If Lauren felt uncomfortable around Alex because of the incident then Tana would support her decision, although she worried how Alex would react to it.

“No!” Lauren yelled as she pulled back from the hug to look at Tana’s face. “No. No, sorry, I want to see him... but, um... will everyone else be there?” She asked. 

“Not if you don’t want them to be. I can go get Alex for you now, if you want me too.” Tana suggested. Lauren looked conflicted for a moment but then she nodded her head.   
“Please? I really want to see him.” She whispered and Tana nodded before she stood up and walked to the door.

She opened it and stepped out to see Rosanna, Lele, Colleen, Tim and Destorm outside. ‘Shoot! No Alex.’ She mentally cursed before she spoke to everyone outside.   
“Do any of you know where Alex is? Lauren wants to see him.” She explained as their eyes grew wide. 

“Wait. You found Lauren? Is she alright?” Everyone asked at once as they stepped towards the door.

“Hard to tell. Physically she’s fine, mentally... not so fine so she doesn’t want to see anyone apart from Alex. Do you know where he went? I promised that I’d get him.” Tana said quickly. 

“Hold on. I’ll be right back.” Rosanna said before she sprinted off around a corner and Tana went back to tell Lauren that they were getting Alex. 

*

Rosanna ran down the corridor to the room that she’d seen Alex dash into and hoped he was still in there. She accidentally skidded into the door in her rush to open it but she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Alex walk back into the room from another door.

“Alex. Tana found Lauren and she said that Lauren really wants to see you!” She exclaimed whilst she put her hands on her knees and started to take some deep breaths as her crazed sprinting had left her feeling completely breathless. ‘Bad idea to run without sleeping the past few days, Ro’ She thought to herself as she saw black spots in her vision.

“What? Are they back at the room down the corridor?” Alex said as he walked towards her.  
“Yeah the- oh?” Rosanna mumbled as Alex had legged it past her to get back to Lauren.   
“Urggh. More running for me then.” She said sarcastically to herself as ahe followed Alex back to the others.

*

Once Alex had got back to the room, he saw that mostly everyone was back, apart from Rosanna, Tana and Lauren.  
“Where is she?” He said as he frantically looked around the room, searching for Lauren, before Tana poked her head out of the door and waved for him to come in. All of a sudden he had an awful feeling in his stomach. ‘What if Lauren was mad with him about what he did? Or hated him now?’ He couldn’t do it. He’d hurt her. How could she possibly forgive him or love him after what he did?’  
Luckily, Tana had seen the sudden change in his eyes and gently reached out and pulled him closer to her so she could give him a hug.   
“She wants to see you. She knows that you didn’t want to do it and she really wants to see you. Come on.” She whispered as she held out her hand and gently pulled Alex into the room when he took it.   
Once they were in, she quickly asked Lauren if they wanted to be alone and once she nodded, turned, walked to the door and gave Alex’s hand a reassuring squeeze as she passed and closed the door after she slipped out.

As soon as Tana left, Lauren immediately stood and ran into Alex’s arms. Alex hadn’t expected it and almost fell over but he didn’t care. Alex and Lauren were wrapped in each other’s arms again and that was all that mattered to them at the moment. They both had started to cry as they hugged each other closer.  
Until Lauren mumbled something that Alex couldn’t hear with her head buried in his neck. 

“I want to leave. I miss everyone so much. I miss being alive and looking at the stars and watching crappy movies together and making projects. I just want to go back home.” She cried as she started to breakdown and Alex’s heart shattered into a million pieces. 

“I know. I know, I do too. But I promise that we are gonna get out of here and we are going to make The Collector pay for everything she has ever done to us. I’ll make sure of it.” He exclaimed as he hugged her closer to his chest. “I’m gonna make her wear that collar and see how she likes how it feels to harm someone you love... although I don’t think that she’s ever loved anyone apart from herself? Okay, that’s a minor setback.” He said as he heard Lauren giggle.  
There was a few minutes of silence until Lauren asked him a question.

“How bad does my hair look now? Is it awful?” She asked him sadly. 

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop myself because of that stupid collar and I’m so sorry. I should’ve tried harder to stop it b-“ he was cut off during his apology by Lauren.   
“I know you couldn’t stop it and I don’t blame you. I asked because I haven’t seen it and I’ve spent a week in here with only my imagination running wild and convincing myself that it’s horrendous.” She elaborated.   
“I’m n- I don’t think it looks that bad? I mean if it grows out a little I think it will really suit you.” He whinced, unsure of what to say to comfort her about it.  
“How do you think everyone’s going to react?” Lauren asked worriedly as she reached up to touch her hair again.   
“It might be a little awkward at first, but I think they’ll be alright about it.” He answered. “Shall we?”   
“Yeah, might as well. We’ve been out of the exhibition for a week and The Collector will probably open the Museum soon.” She thought out loud. 

They stood up together, gave each other the biggest hug they could manage and wrapped their arms around each other’s waists so they could walk out together. They opened the door, stepped out and were greeted by multiple gasps as people saw Lauren’s hair for the first time.   
Lele and Colleen had their mouths dropped open in shock.   
Rosanna had tears in her eyes as she knew how much Lauren loved her hair.   
Destorm looked angry and began to mumble threats targeted towards The Collector under his breath.  
Gabbie and Tana didn’t really have a reaction as Tana had been the first to see Lauren and Gabbie had had her positive emotions removed so like usual, her face stayed blank. Tana also walked up to give them both a quick hug once she had asked and got their permission.  
Justine and Liza had a mix of shock, anger and sadness in their eyes and looked conflicted on what they should do.  
Tim had walked up and apologised for holding Alex down to get the collar off but Alex said that it helped get rid of the stupid collar and thanked him for doing it.   
The guests stayed together and chatted for a little while about what they had missed until The Collector and her guards came to take them to get ready for the morning.  
As Lauren stepped up onto her podium, The Collector called her back down again. The Collector walked over with something in her hands and told two guards to hold her still. The Collector spent a minute fiddling with the object on Lauren’s head but after she stepped away, Lauren realised what she had just had placed upon her head.

It was a wig... made from the locks of hair that had been cut off her head. The other guests looked uncomfortable, Lauren had had her hair, her comfort item, taken away. Only for it to be given back to her when there was no way for her to be allowed to touch it, it was cruel and it pissed them off.   
Lauren closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths and moved into her position as the glass cases came up around each guest. 

Later on in the day, Lauren had been thinking of random things to distract herself from the aches of her muscles when she had remembered some lyrics from a song.   
“I had a dream my life would be,   
So different from this hell I'm living!   
So different now from what it seemed.  
Now... life... has... killed... the... dream...   
I... dreamed.”  
Not a single one of the Museum’s visitors noticed the tear that slide down Lauren’s cheek as she thought of those lines.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was that ending cringey? I feel like it was a bit cringey? Oh well.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that chapter... well, enjoyed it as much as you could when it’s about the guests being tortured?   
I’m not sure how well written Alex and Lauren’s relationship is written in this chapter but I hope it’s okay?
> 
> Thanks for reading! Have a great day :D

**Author's Note:**

> That was the first story and I hope you enjoyed it and I’ll try to write another one soon.
> 
> This chapter title is from ‘Bury A Friend’ by Billie Eilish.


End file.
